ella kept the feast of S. Ignazio; S. Croce, that of S.
Bartholomew, called S. Baccio; S. Spirito, that of the Holy Spirit; and
the Carmine, those of the Ascension of Our Lord and of the Assumption of
Our Lady. This festival of the Ascension--for of the others of
importance an account has been or will be given--was very beautiful,
seeing that Christ was uplifted on a cloud covered with angels from a
Mount very well made of wood, and was borne upwards to a Heaven, leaving
the Apostles on the Mount; and the whole was so well contrived that it
was a marvel, above all because the said Heaven was somewhat larger than
that of S. Felice in Piazza, although the machinery was almost the same.
And since the said Church of the Carmine, where this representation used
to take place, is no little broader and higher than that of S. Felice,
in addition to the part that supported Christ another Heaven was
sometimes erected, according as it was thought advisable, over the chief
tribune, wherein were certain great wheels made in the shape of reels,
which, from the centres to the edges, moved in most beautiful order ten
circles standing for the ten Heavens, which were all full of little
lights representing the stars, contained in little copper lamps hanging
on pivots, so that when the wheels revolved they remained upright, in
the manner of certain lanterns that are now universally used by all.
From this Heaven, which was truly a very beautiful thing, there issued
two stout ropes fastened to the staging or tramezzo[20] which is in the
said church, and over which the representation took place. To these
ropes were attached, by each end of a so-called brace-fastening, two
little bronze pulleys which supported an iron upright fixed into a level
platform, on which stood two angels fastened by their girdles. These
angels were kept upright by a counterpoise of lead which they had under
their feet, and by another that was under the platform on which they
stood; and this also served to make them balanced one with another. The
whole was covered with a quantity of cotton-wool, very well arranged in
the form of a cloud, which was full of cherubim and seraphim, and
similar kinds of angels, varied in colour and very well contrived. These
angels, when a little rope was unwound from the Heaven above, came down
the two larger ropes on to the said tramezzo, where the representation
took place, and announced to Christ that He was to ascend into Heaven,
and perf